Following a positive opening day at Motorland Aragon, Team SUZUKI ECSTAR’s riders took to the track on Saturday with high hopes for the day’s qualifying session. Both riders had provisionally made solid performances in free practice sessions, but with everyone upping the pace in FP3 this morning they needed to maintain strong lap times to stay within the Top 10 - something they managed well.

With Q2 passage guaranteed, FP4 was used by the riders to reconfirm settings and prepare for the qualifying session. Andrea Iannone once again demonstrated his strong pace by finishing the session in 2nd place.

Very small margins between the riders led to a fast and furious Q2, but Iannone and Rins responded accordingly. The Italian snatched a second row spot with 5th place, while the local favourite, Rins, secured a third row start with 9th.

Davide Brivio - Team Manager
“Andrea’s starting position is not bad and we’re on the second row. We’ve seen some good pace from him throughout today, so let’s see! Alex has worked very well during the weekend, checking and trying many settings and then managing to get a third row. It’s a little bit difficult starting from there, but I hope we can get a nice launch like in Misano and try to stay with the top group. I think we have the potential to have a good race, and both riders are in good shape, so we will try.”

Andrea Iannone
“It’s been a positive day, although I think I had the possibility to get a front row grid position. On the last lap I lost a bit of time when Marquez rejoined the track in front of me after he made a mistake. But in any case, these things can happen and it’s normal. We’ve worked well this weekend, the bike had a good base and then we improved practice by practice. We need to find a bit more traction with the rear but anyway, I will try my best tomorrow.”

Alex Rins
“I’m feeling good. It was an interesting day as we tried many things and many different tyres. We felt like we had a good setup from FP3 onwards, so this was nice. It’s difficult to decide on the tyres, it will depend on the weather tomorrow. I will give my maximum and try to get a good start, I think we have the rhythm and the pace to be with the second group, so we’ll try to fight there.”